City of Chicago v. Morales (1999) saw the Supreme Court overturn a Chicago ordinance which prohibited gang members from loitering in a public space after being ordered by a police officer to disperse. Justice Stevens wrote the 6-3 majority opinion for the case. He argued that "the ordinance's definition of loitering as "to remain in any one place with no apparent purpose" does not give people adequate notice of what is prohibited and what is permitted, even if a person does not violate the law until he refuses to disperse. "'[A] law fails to meet the requirements of the Due Process Clause if it is so vague and standardless that it leaves the public uncertain as to the conduct it prohibits,'" noted Justice Stevens, "[i]f the loitering is in fact harmless and innocent, the dispersal order itself is an unjustified impairment of liberty."Stevens went on to argue that the ordinance failed to satisfy the fair notice requirement and indeed was written so vaguely that it would be nearly impossible to follow. It failed also to uphold "minimal guidelines" to govern law enforcement and allowed police near unlimited authority to determine who violated the ordinance. Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Breyer wrote concurrences in which they agreed with the substance of Stevens's opinion.
Justice Scalia dissented. He began by noting that Chicago as most cities did imposed speed limits on how fast one could drive within city limits, and nobody had ever argued that their constitutional rights were infringed upon by them. Also at one time it had been normal for people to gather around and gawk at the scene of a traffic accident. Eventually this was deemed to cause additional safety risks to pedestrians and police were permitted to order crowds to disperse. Again no one ever claimed this was unconstitutional. Getting to the matter at hand, Scalia argued that the Chicago anti-loitering ordinance, passed in 1992, was a necessary sacrifice of some liberty for the greater good as the city was being "terrorized" by gang activity and crime. He argued that Stevens seemed to think loitering was a fundamental right and saw vagueness where there was none.Scalia went on to overview the Supreme Court's authority going back to Marbury v. Madison when the Court's right to review and overturn acts of Congress had been established. He said that the Court could only overturn laws on a case by case basis. Justice Sutherland in his opinion for Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923) argued that the Court could not simply void an act of Congress for non-constitutionality unless a clear injury or violation of the Bill of Rights was established. Scalia continued by saying it would be overreaching to suppose a legislative act could be overturned in all cases instead of the specific case at hand.
He went on to quote West Side Story--"...alongside and chatting with fellow gang members while staking out their turf at Promontory Point on the South Side of Chicago; the group is flashing gang signs and displaying their distinctive tattoos to passersby. Officer Krupke, applying the ordinance at issue here, orders the group to disperse. After some speculative discussion (probably irrelevant here) over whether the Jets are depraved because they are deprived, Tony and the other gang members break off further conversation with the statement-not entirely coherent, but evidently intended to be rude-"Gee, Officer Krupke, krup you." A tense standoff ensues until Officer Krupke arrests the group for failing to obey his dispersal order." "Even assuming (as the Justices in the majority do, but I do not) that a law requiring obedience to a dispersal order is impermissibly vague unless it is clear to the objects of the order, before its issuance, that their conduct justifies it, I find it hard to believe that the Jets would not have known they had it coming. That should settle the matter of respondents' facial challenge to the ordinance's vagueness."
Returning to real-life gangs, "For instance, respondent Jose Renteria-who admitted that he was a member of the Satan Disciples gang-was observed by the arresting officer loitering on a street corner with other gang members. The officer issued a dispersal order, but when she returned to the same corner 15 to 20 minutes later, Renteria was still there with his friends, whereupon he was arrested. In another example, respondent Daniel Washington and several others-who admitted they were members of the Vice Lords gang-were observed by the arresting officer loitering in the street, yelling at passing vehicles, stopping traffic, and preventing pedestrians from using the sidewalks. The arresting officer issued a dispersal order, issued another dispersal order later when the group did not move, and finally arrested the group when they were found loitering in the same place still later. Finally, respondent Gregorio Gutierrez-who had previously admitted to the arresting officer his membership in the Latin Kings gang-was observed loitering with two other men. The officer issued a dispersal order, drove around the block, and arrested the men after finding them in the same place upon his return."The majority also argued that loitering laws had a history of targeting African-Americans. While this was unfortunate, said Scalia, none of it proved that loitering was a fundamental right.
Justice Thomas penned a separate dissent. He went down the terrible toll that crime and gang violence inflicted on some neighborhoods and that many law-abiding citizens of these areas were afraid to leave their own homes. From 1987 to '94, gangs in Chicago were involved in 63,141 criminal incidents including 21,689 violent crimes that did not result in the victim's death, and 894 homicides. In 1996 alone gang violence claimed the lives of 225 persons in Chicago, 28% of all reported homicides in the city for that year. Most of these resulted from turf wars as rival gangs fought for control of neighborhoods or the drug trade. The city council had terrified residents testify about the damage this activity caused to their neighorhoods. A woman named D'Ivory Gordon said "When I walk out my door, these guys are out there. They watch you. They know where you live.They know what time you leave, what time you come home. I am afraid of them. I have even come to the point now that I carry a meat cleaver to work with me. I don't want to hurt anyone, and I don't want to be hurt. We need to clean these corners up. Clean these communities up and take it back from them."Susan Mary Jackson, an octogenarian resident of Chicago, testified "We used to have a nice neighborhood. We don't have it anymore. I am scared to go out in the daytime. [Y]ou can't pass because they are standing. I am afraid to go to the store. I don't go to the store because I am afraid. At my age if they look at me real hard, I be ready to holler."
Thomas agreed with Scalia that the majority's contention of the Chicago ordinance being too vague was preposterous and that there was sufficient legal history to suppose loitering had always been regarded as a crime and not an innocuous activity. He cited a colonial era Georgia statute which proscribed the activity and a Pennsylvania statute from the 1850s which similarly proscribed vagrancy and loitering.A 1996 study by the Department of Justice estimated that there were 31,000 street gangs in the United States with more than 800,000 members.
"Today, the Court focuses extensively on the 'rights' of gang members and their companions. It can safely do so the people who will have to live with the consequences of today's opinion do not live in our neighborhoods. Rather, the people who will suffer from our lofty pronouncements are people like Ms. Susan Mary Jackson; people who have seen their neighborhoods literally destroyed by gangs and violence and drugs. They are good, decent people who must struggle to overcome their desperate situation, against all odds, in order to raise their families, earn a living, and remain good citizens. As one resident described: 'There is only about maybe one or two percent of the people in the city causing these problems maybe, but it's keeping 98 percent of us in our houses and off the streets and afraid to shop.' By focusing exclusively on the imagined 'rights' of the 2%, the Court today has denied our most vulnerable citizens the very thing that Justice Stevens elevates above all else-the 'freedom of movement.' And that is a shame. I respectfully dissent."
>>16884861>>16884852>>16884851>>16884845>>16884839>>16884834>>16884833oiy god this ruling was retarded as fuck. yes if you're a bunch of nogs or beaners hanging out on a block wearing identical outfits and flashing gang signs cops do have probable cause to believe you're up to no good and tell you to disperse. come on, Stevens, you're better than this.
>>16884834>Scalia went on to overview the Supreme Court's authority going back to Marbury v. Madison when the Court's right to review and overturn acts of Congress had been established. He said that the Court could only overturn laws on a case by case basis. Justice Sutherland in his opinion for Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923) argued that the Court could not simply void an act of Congress for non-constitutionality unless a clear injury or violation of the Bill of Rights was established. Scalia continued by saying it would be overreaching to suppose a legislative act could be overturned in all cases instead of the specific case at hand.If we followed this logic, Jim Crow would still exist.>Brown v. Board of Education would just rule that only Kansas schools had to be desegregated not just schools everywhere
>>16884833>God bless America, land of the free>NOOOOOO you can't just... stand around! You're not free to do that, not unless you pass a cop's personal vibe check!
